Digital manufacturing, rapid prototyping, desktop manufacturing, and/or personal fabrication systems (generally, “three dimensional (3D) printers”) include forms of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is fabricated by successive layers of material. Analogously to the way that conventional (two dimensional) desktop printers provide computer users with a paper output of their documents, 3D printers can provide 3D computer-aided-design (CAD) users a physical prototype of real world objects. 3D printers can include technologies using inkjet printing to deposit layers of plaster or resins, light projection systems (e.g., stereolithography) to expose and harden liquid polymers, fused deposition modeling to deposit layers of polymer, laser sintering to fuse small particles, and so forth.
3D printers may be faster, more affordable and easier to use than other commercial additive manufacturing technologies. Some types of 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts or assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. 3D printing technologies can yield models that closely emulate the look, feel and functionality of product prototypes. Recently, some 3D printers have become economically accessible to smaller businesses and personal users, thereby allowing prototyping and product fabrication to be performed by such businesses and users. 3D printing technology can be used in, for example, consumer products, industrial design, engineering, automotive, and medical industries.
The above-described drawings and the following detailed description are provided to illustrate example embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure.